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Art and popular culture are no strangers to each other.
Think Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s Soup and Andy Warhol
in the 1960s. Here in the Commonwealth, though, the marriage
has taken on a style unique to our home-grown culture.
For example, this April, Roanoke audiences experienced
the “NASCAR Ballet,” performed by the dancers-cum-stock
cars of the Roanoke Ballet Theatre. The company scheduled
the ballet just days before the actual Nextel Cup race
on the NASCAR circuit in nearby Martinsville.
The brainchild of choreographer Jenny Mansfield, the NASCAR-inspired
modern dance featured 30 dancers circling an oval track
in bright jump suits decorated with “sponsor logos.”
The New Age score featured the sounds of engines revving,
and a local sports anchor provided play-by-play color.
Three television screens broadcast the action from various
angles.
To prepare, dancers perused NASCAR
for Dummies. They also watched videos of past
Nextel Cup races, and even picked up the sports page,
reported Chris Kahn of the Associated Press in an article
picked up by newspapers nationwide.
NASCAR is just the most recent of Mansfield’s dance
endeavors. In 2001, she melded genres with her “Bluegrass
Ballet,” in which bluegrass celebrity Del McCoury
and his band appeared on stage with the ballet dancers.
Next, Mansfield paid homage to Roanoke’s proximity
to the Blue Ridge mountains with “Aerial Ballet.”
Her performers studied for six months with a mountain
climbing expert, and then danced 70 feet up, suspended
by ropes, off the roof of the building where the company
is housed.
Ballet isn’t the only art form that’s enjoyed
an Old Dominion interpretation. Virginia’s car culture
is the subject of a traveling display created by the Blue
Ridge Institute & Museum in Ferrum. The exhibit, which
made an appearance at the Museum’s Blue Ridge Folklife
Festival in October 2003, celebrates the “souped-up,
chopped-down and tricked-out automobile.” It features
automobile artists known for pinstripping – the
freehand painting of designs on hoods, trunks and dashboards
– plus artisans who sculpt interior upholstery panels;
and street rod, drag race and oval track race car designs.
While cars have inspired Virginia ballet and art, one
particular Virginian inspired an opera. Last October the
Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia premiered Nancy, which
was based on the true story of Nancy Randolph, who was
banished from colonial Virginia’s most prominent
family after a jury acquitted her of murdering her illegitimate
child. The opera tells the tale of her exile to Connecticut,
where the gossip followed her, and then to New York, where
she married Gouverneur Morris, one of the architects of
the U.S. Constitution. When Morris’ nephew fears
the loss of an inheritance, he shares the gossip with
his uncle, who refuses to believe the accusations. His
nephew then threatens Morris with a pistol and Nancy runs
him off by brandishing a saber. Nancy’s life was
a libretto waiting to happen!
Side note: opera aficionados may be thrilled to note that
Puccini’s last work, the world-renowned Turandot,
begins its run at the Virginia Opera in Richmond on October
1.
Besides being home to the Virginia Opera, Richmond is
also home to Virginia Commonwealth University’s
annual public art project. Since 1999, Linda Voreland
of VCU’s art department has lead an effort to use
urban spaces to create unconventional art that involves
audiences as well as performers.
At last year’s event, hair was the medium and the
message. The Urban Light Works International Project featured
five hair stylists from a local salon creating illuminated
hairdos as 8mm and 16mm home movies were projected onto
the walls of buildings.
Previously the group staged a two-day kinetic show featuring
a Norwegian ceramic artist creating his work in a giant
wood firing kiln. The oven had been covered with a translucent
fiber blanket for better viewing. Past works have included
strolling artists in illuminated clothes.
Also in Richmond, Gov. Mark R. Warner recently recognized
Virginia’s artistic contribution to the music industry
when he signed legislation in May designating 224 miles
of mountain roads as “Virginia’s Heritage
Music Trail: The Crooked Road.” Attractions along
the trail include the Old Fiddler’s Convention in
Galax, and Hiltons, the hometown of country music’s
Carter family, as well as a museum dedicated to the work
of bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley.
Gov. Warner wasn’t the only legislator recognizing
the value of Virginia-bred art and artists. In the midst
of the budget crisis this spring, the Virginia General
Assembly restored $640 million in funds for the Virginia
Commission for the Arts.
By the way, the Commission will award Artist Fellowships
of $5,000 each to Virginia-based poets and painters this
fall. Now’s the time for all you Bacon’s Rebels
to dig out your pens and paintbrushes and get some recognition
for your “creative excellence”! Deadline for
receipt of application is August 2.
July 26, 2004
(Got a question? Check out Ask
a Librarian Live.)
Nice & Curious
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